The House of Representatives has released the testimony of former Speaker Takahiro Yokoji, who passed away last year. It has been revealed that while Mr. Yokoji was serving as speaker, he had compiled a reform bill to change the regular session of the Diet to 300 days, effectively making it a ``year-round session,'' in order to enhance the deliberation of bills.

The House of Representatives is carrying out an "oral history" project in which it listens to and records testimonies from past Speakers and Vice-chairs, and on the 29th, as the second speaker following former Speaker Yohei Kono, a member of the former Democratic Party of Japan, who has been with the Democratic Party since 2009, was announced. We have released a transcript of the testimony heard by Takahiro Yokoji, who served as chairman for over three years and passed away in February last year, during his lifetime.



Regarding the role of the Diet, Mr. Yokoji said, ``The parliamentary system is really important.The reason why President Putin of Russia does what he wants is because the Diet lacks administrative control.The Diet has the power to regulate power. We have to hold on to it,” he said.



Based on his experience as speaker of a ``twisted Diet'' in which the House of Representatives had different majorities, he held numerous meetings with the Speaker of the House of Councilors and others in order to enhance bill deliberations and promote consensus-building between the ruling and opposition parties, and in 2012 he initiated reform of the Diet. He revealed that he was putting together a plan.



In addition to revitalizing the "bicameral conference" that is held when the House of Representatives disagrees, the reform bill also doubles the period of the regular Diet session convened in January from the current 150 days to 300 days, effectively This includes the idea that the Diet should be held year-round.



However, the reform plan was not made public because the Democratic Party of Japan government at the time prioritized responding to the Great East Japan Earthquake and reforming the social security system.



In addition, Mr. Yokoji praised the Democratic Party of Japan's government, saying, ``Each minister acted based on the manifesto,'' but pointed out that there were problems with the way it prioritized policies and the removal of bureaucrats.

Copies of confidential documents obtained from sources other than Mr. Nishiyama

Mr. Yokoji obtained the same information that Mr. Nishiyama obtained in 1972 after Mr. Taikichi Nishiyama, a reporter for the Mainichi Shimbun, published a report hinting at the existence of a secret agreement between Japan and the United States regarding the return of Okinawa when he was a member of the former Socialist Party. He confronted the government in the Diet while showing copies of confidential documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.



Afterwards, the government took issue with the leak of the documents, and Mr. Nishiyama was arrested and charged with illegally obtaining confidential documents from a female Ministry of Foreign Affairs employee.



In his testimony, Mr. Yokoji explained how he obtained a copy of the confidential document, saying, ``Right before the questioning, I received a phone call and was told, ``You can use this,'' and was given it to me.''



When asked by a researcher interviewing him, ``Did you get it from a political reporter who is a colleague of Nishiyama?'' Nishiyama replied, ``No comment. He's a friend that I know well.'' He testified that it was brought in by someone other than Mr.



Regarding Nishiyama's arrest after his own questioning, Mr. Yokoji said, ``I thought it was a good opportunity to overthrow the Sato Cabinet, but no one thought that newspaper reporters would become targets of oppression.It's very unfortunate.'' I think so.''